Back in October I was at work and one of my CT's was asking me about my brewing adventures. Of course I was more than happy to fill her in on the variety of wines and beers I had already brewed and wanted to brew in the future. She suggested pineapple.

I agreed.

I found the perfect juice at Jason's, an upscale supermarket in the basement of Chung You Department Store. It came in juice boxes of one liter each, just what I needed, so I grabbed four of 'em and high tailed it back to my place. The boxes reminded me of the BIOES juice that I'd used before and I guess I should have checked for fruit pulp/silt after my adventures with my mango wine. I would reccommend doing this if you are brewing with 100% juice as this could mean there is still some particulate matter in the container.

The recipe:

4L Prince Pineapple Juice
1 cup white table sugar
1.5 sachet of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

I had added the 1 cup of boiled raisin slurry to my last couple batches of wine and for this one I opted to try going without it, though I did add a cup of table sugar to boost my ABV. I think in the next few batches I may add less and see how it affects the taste and carbonation levels. Lots of booze is nice, but I'm certainly not against making something a touch weaker if it will also be more delicious.

To aid your fermentation be sure to give your vessel a damn-good-shake before you pitch your yeast. You should be shaking it anyway to get your adjunct(s) dissolved, but it's also an excellent way to knock some extra O2 into your must (unfermented wine) to help your little yeasty pals get to work. I shook the shit out of my pineapple must and I think it helped. I think.

I sound unsure because once I had everything put together and my temperature checked, I pulled a slug for the hydrometer and then pitched my yeast. I'd been really economical with my yeast packs by brewing two wines at a time every time I opened a packet. I figured that one sachet was enough to ferment a full batch of wine, 20 liters or so, so half a packet into a 4 liter batch would be fine. I still had half a packet left in the cupboard from one of my other brews so I pulled that out and chucked it into my pinapple must. But, I worried that after a week or two out of the fridge and sitting in an opened package the whole time those little buggers wouldn't be able to work hard enough to bring my final gravity down low enough.

So I added some more yeast, just in case.

A lot more.

Oops!

I had only meant to pour in about half of the fresh packet of yeast but I got distracted for a second or didn't realize how fast it poured out. When I checked to see how much was left it was pretty much empty. So, I shrugged and added the rest and then waited to see how long my lag time would be.

I got my first bubbles after only 20 minutes. Then, after an hour or two, things really got going.

Wacky, eh? You can actually see the pressure from the CO2 being created moving the foamy bits on top of the liquid. Any homebrewer is always pleased to see a batch get going this well and I was no different. But when the sanitizer started bubbling out of the airlock I got a little worried.

It isn't a huge deal if this happens, it just means you have a must/wort that is undergoing a particularly robust fermenation. The danger is that if you get particulate matter stuck in the valves in the airlock and they block the exit-flow of CO2, the possible effects are less than ideal.

In other words:

Ka-BOOM.

So when I saw the airlock foaming like the mouth of a rabid wombat, I ran down the street to the everything-store and bought more lengths of hose. I yanked out the airlock and replaced it with one of the hoses. I had bought three lengths of three different diameters, so it was a relief that the first one I tried went right in. This apparatus, for those that don't know, is called a blow-off hose and some people use them routinely instead of airlocks. For a batch like this they are really useful because they allow the CO2 to escape along with any of the gunky bits that might have clogged up your airlock. The principle is the same, CO2 bubbles out, nothing comes in, so be sure to keep the exit submerged. I would reccommend using sanitizer solution, as I did, or vodka to keep any interesting creatures from hiking back up the tube and spoiling your brew.

Along with all of the CO2 coming out and the crazy foam-party that was rockin' up near the neck of the bottle, there was lots of stuff floating up and down through the vessel as everything fermented; still makes me think of some kind of fruity snow-globe. Pineapple snowflakes? Yes, please!

So, I let this sit in the bottle for about 5 weeks to see if it would clear and also because I was pretty short on free time. It didn't clear as much as the APPF or the Hard Apple, but that's probably because those juices were already clear before I fermented them. When bottling, the first bottle is usually the clearest, as you can see, because once I fill that first bottle there is usually still some wine left in my siphon. This bit of leftover wine drops back into the fermentor and generally the force of it is enough to stir up the sediment. That's ok though, because I'm trying to carbonate 1 liter of this stuff and it needs to be cloudy to do that. The rest of it got put into bottles, labeled, and then chucked into the closet.

I started with an OG of 1.060 and ended with an FG of .990, so this pineapple wine should be about 9% ABV. I'm really looking forward to trying it and I've got my fingers crossed that it carbonates; fizzy pineapple wine sounds rather nice, eh?

So keep those peepers peeled for some tasting updates, I've got a few different things to sample in the coming weeks. I'm really excited for Sue to get back to Taiwan NEXT FRIDAY (yayyyy) so we can crack open the mango just in time for New Years. In the mean time, Happy brewing!